Thanks, I don't drink anymore
Can a kiss from spring also kill you? -Pablo Neruda
Sitting on a red armchair, she absentmindedly looks at all the people around her, too many for her taste. Oh, the young ones! They like to drink, smoke, listen to music at a volume where it is impossible to do anything else, and probably try to talk about trivialities, trivialities that are not even heard over that damn noise, trivialities that she doesn’t care about.
Who had convinced her to go out? To come to a party, probably one of her friends had managed to convince her, they were so worried about her. According to them, she was one step away from becoming a hermit; they said she needed to go out, see other faces, meet new people. Who comes up with those stupid ideas? To forget the past, as if it were so easy, or was it she who said that?
Someone offers her beer when suddenly, among those bodies that mean nothing to her, something catches her attention, a shiver runs through her body, it’s him. Tall, perhaps too tall, slim but just the right size for her arms and serious as a heart attack… “Ew!” says a voice in her head; she hates that effect he had on her, why did he always make her think cheesy things? Why does he make her feel like a headless teenager?
She feels the space closing in on her, she can only see him as if through a tunnel, after so many months without seeing him, she can’t handle it. She gets up from her armchair and heads towards anywhere, she doesn’t even know where she is, let alone where to go.
Then she doesn’t know how, but they are face to face. They look into each other’s eyes, so much time has passed. They try to talk, with canned phrases: Hello, how are you? Fine, how’s life? But she feels a knot perhaps in her throat, maybe in her stomach, her legs weaken; all her knowledge of anatomy is worth nothing, it’s as if he turns her into an undefined mass and she doesn’t know where her parts are. She doesn’t understand how any other human being can have so much power over her.
Suddenly she fears those feelings, she’s afraid he’ll realize them, her heart is beating so hard that she’s sure he can see it on her blouse; she simply moves in another direction without saying more, the words don’t come out. He seems to be left standing in his place.
However, a few steps away from reproaching herself for being so weak and stupid, she feels a hand on hers. A hand that makes her turn and get trapped against the wall, the wall that together with those arms, which have moved closer to her shoulders, constitute a prison, where she could stay for the rest of her life.
Oh God! Again with the cheesiness, says the voice in her head, as laughter comes from another world and she hears Miguel Bosé … “no one like you knows how to make me coffee”. She realizes he’s looking into her eyes, there’s only that look and he smiles as if he heard her thoughts, she returns the smile, laughing at herself a little embarrassed. After a few seconds he kisses her, she feels the taste of him expanding throughout her mouth and somehow still understanding her whole body, “is it possible to taste with the whole body?”, she laughs at her own idea; he takes the opportunity to kiss her neck and gently bite her ear. She feels a strong embrace, his whole body presses her against the wall for a few seconds, enough for an unknown flame to ignite in her abdomen.
She closes her eyes and clings to his neck, she doesn’t want to wake up. She has no idea what’s going on, but she doesn’t want it to end.
She barely feels the passing of time, without pause they have found a quieter place, like an abandoned corner of her head. He resumes exploring the whiteness of her skin, this time with more eagerness. He looks for her under her blouse, touching her breasts, which huddle in his hands, they seem grateful and at the same time demand to have been separated from them for so long. She takes off his shirt and with her playful finger runs over his torso, admiring every millimeter. It’s so strange, it’s a torso like any other, but she feels as if she’s been given the key to play in the hanging gardens of Babylon.
Then her ideas come to an end, her brain shuts off, she no longer thinks, she only feels. She feels as if they have no clothes left, the expansive taste reaches inside her and serves as fuel for the flame in her abdomen, a series of transformations that she cannot explain occur to her, she thinks she’s a cookie dough, a fistful of confetti in an avenue, a puddle of water in summer, bark flowers in the wind, a butterfly that thinks it’s a jellyfish… she feels like an old dam.
But a infernal noise makes her ears ring, the heat becomes a sharp pain that pierces her body and makes her shrink, she manages to hear the strange voice, who shouted at her? She shakes her head, what did they say to her? That if she wanted beer? She tries to focus her eyes, she’s sitting on a red armchair, there’s a lot of noise around her and many faces she doesn’t recognize, particularly she can’t find among the attendees the only face she’s interested in.
They ask her again: Beer? She looks up and feeling the black hole inside her grow bigger, she answers, “No, thanks, I don’t drink anymore”.
P.S: It is the second task of the literary workshop, to write a story with the theme of eroticism.